Decline in cognitive function in ageing and neurodegenerative disease is a major health and social problem. Currently, the approach for improving cognitive function involves pharmacological intervention targeting neurotransmitter pathways believed to be involved in the process of memory formation with the aim of increasing neurotransmitter level and thus improve signal transmission.
Currently, drug therapies for cognitive impairment are at best symptomatic or supportive. Consequently, there is an unmet need for therapies and methods for treating cognitive impairment, a need that is steadily increasing with the ageing of the world population. The need for improving cognition is not a prerogative only of cognitively impaired patients but may also be desired by normally functioning individuals desiring to improve learning and memory.